The present invention is directed to a seismic emergency response system for preventing damage to equipment and wafers within a wafer fabrication FAB during an earthquake.
Earthquakes can severely impact wafer fabrication plants by wasting time and expenses to recover lost production and fabrication operations. During an earthquake, a FAB will typically continue to operate using a live power source and as a result of oscillations or seismic occurrences caused by the earthquake, fabrication equipment can be damaged and wafer surfaces are scratched or scraped by the damaged equipment. Often, information concerning a lot being run during an earthquake is lot.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a system that can reduce an impact of an earthquake by stopping equipment operations and material flow upon occurrence of an earthquake.
It is further desirable to provide lot information regarding lots run during an earthquake.
It is further desirable to protect fabrication equipment""s operating mechanism when an earthquake happens.
It is further desirable to reduce the number of wafers requiring scrapping when an earthquake occurs.
It is further desirable to provide a hold lot function to collect statistics resulting from earthquake impacted lots, and to help an engineer quickly recover from an earthquake occurrence by logging information regarding lots being fabricated in the fab, for example lots disposed within fabrication equipment and lots within a bay.
In general, the present invention provides a seismic emergency response system having a facility manager control system and a computer integrated manufacturing system that cooperate to control fabrication equipment and material flow for prevention of damage to wafers and equipment within a wafer fabrication plant during an earthquake.
The facility manager control system has a seismic detection device for detecting seismic activity, a voting logic device for inputting signals from the seismic detection device and outputting an alarm triggering signal to a computer integrated manufacturing system.
The computer integrated manufacturing system has an emergency response system and an equipment server (tool application program), wherein the emergency response system receives the alarm triggering signal output from the voting logic device, and communicates with the equipment server (tool application program) to send a pause equipment command to an associated piece of equipment and a hold lot command to a material execution system to prevent damage of wafers during an earthquake.
Preferably, the seismic emergency response system provides a false alarm signal prevention device to prevent against communication failure between the voting logic device and the CIM system and an emergency response center having an enabling switch to prevent the SERS from disabling pieces of fabrication equipment and from disabling the MES system according to instructions received by the emergency response center.
Additionally provided is an alternative embodiment of the seismic emergency response system that prevents damaging fabrication equipment and a material execution system associated with a particular Richter scale level. The alternative embodiment provides a FMCS having a plurality of seismic detection devices for detecting seismic activity, and at least one voting logic device for inputting signals from the plurality of seismometer groups and outputting a plurality of associated alarm triggering signals to a CIM system; and a computer integrated manufacturing system for receiving the plurality of associated alarm triggering signals output from the at least one voting logic device, wherein the FMCS and the CIM system cooperate to control fabrication equipment and material flow within a wafer fabrication plant during an earthquake.